Latin American experts demonstrate how market-friendly measures in key policy areas can promote greater equity and efficiency. By identifying win-win strategies, the authors challenge the conventional wisdom that there is always a tradeoff between these two objectives. This volume shows how...

REVELA analiza las expectativas de los mercados sobre crecimiento e inflación para algunos países latinoamericanos. Los valores analizados representan los resultados de encuestas en el sector privado realizadas por los Banco Centrales de cada país y bajo sus propias metodologías. Dichos...

This report examines the quality of public policies in Latin America and the Caribbean after more than a decade of political and economic reform. A wide variety of examples and case studies are presented in an analytical framework to help explain why policies that work in certain institutional...

For decades, the prevailing sentiment was that, since geography is unchangeable, there is no reason why public policies should take it into account. In fact, charges that geographic interpretations of development were deterministic, or even racist, made the subject a virtual taboo in academic...

Inflation targeting has been adopted in a set of emerging economies, including eight countries in Latin America. The success of this regime may depend critically on the credibility of the target and the expectation that the authorities will take appropriate actions if the target is breached....

This paper assesses the effects of total public debt (external and domestic) on social expenditure worldwide and in Latin America using an unbalanced panel of around 50 countries for the period 1985-2003. The most robust and important finding is that higher debt ratios do reduce social...

Banks' market or 'trading' risks have increased noticeably over the past years, largely as a result of the growth of liquid assets on banks' balance sheets and the increase in banks' off-balance sheet activities. Well-publicized bank failures and significant capital losses have focussed further...

This paper was prepared for the 1998 IDB/IIC Annual Meeting entitled: "The Employment in Latin America: What is the Problem and Should it be Addressed?" held in Cartagena, Colombia in March 1998. Despite macroeconomic stabilization and structural reforms, employment problems have persisted in...

This document is an update of an earlier study (Lora, 1997), which argued that the lack of direct measurements of structural policies had stood in the way of adequately evaluating the effects of the reforms on economic growth and other variables. The aim is to describe and measure the advance of...